Imbalances of the Soul
by Kina Kalamari
Summary: Katara has never wondered what it would be like to bend fire. Zuko has never wondered what it would be like to bend water. Unfortunately for them both, it turns out that the spirits have a strange idea of what it what it will take to teach them some life lessons. [Written for Zutara Week 2018.]
1. Element Swap

**AN: I know this is the last day of Zutara Week, but I didn't even realize it was this week until a day or two in and then it took a couple more days for me to decide to actually do it. (I haven't written fic in over three years, and never for ATLA, so this is kind of exciting for me.)**

 **Since I'm late to the party, I decided to do something kind of unconventional with the prompts. I'm starting with the final prompt (so technically I've got the day right for this one at least) and then shuffling the others around to get a multi-chaptered story plot out of them. So this fic will have seven chapters, each one somehow correlating with one of the prompts. I can't promise a chapter a day, since they are going to be longer than your typical prompt drabbles, but I'm going to try to get it out fairly quickly.**

 **Happy Zutara Week 2018, everyone!**

* * *

"You have to shift your feet as you move to the next form," Katara chided her students gently, demonstrating the footwork for them. "It balances the movement of your arms and keeps the flow of the water steady."

The three girls in front of her nodded somberly. "Sorry, Master Katara."

She smiled at them. "You don't need to be sorry. It was difficult for me at first, too."

"But you're such a good bender!" Aya protested.

"I didn't start out that way," Katara replied. "It took a lot of determination and practice, and I know all of you can do that."

After offering up a few more words of encouragement to her young pupils, Katara dismissed the class. She had held their attention for nearly an hour, and she knew they would start to get distracted if she kept them much longer. She preferred to end on a good note.

"Your tutoring seems to be going well," said a voice from behind her. She turned to see her own waterbending teacher standing in the doorway to the instruction space. "I've been told that your students are all quite taken with you."

Katara smiled. "Thank you. That's good to hear."

"It is," Pakku replied with a nod. "It seems I made a good choice in asking you to be a role model to these young girls. How is your own bending?"

She had been reluctant to mention anything to the older master, especially since he had entrusted her with his students, but in the case of a direct question, she supposed she ought to be honest. Maybe he could help.

"It's actually been kind of strange recently," she said, pulling some water from the nearby fountain and coiling it into a spiral above her hand. The movement of the liquid felt slow, like she was guiding it through mud instead of air. "I haven't had any problems doing anything, but it feels very sluggish. Almost like my bending is tired, even when I'm not."

Pakku frowned. "That is odd. Perhaps it is a problem within your chi? After all, our bending is directly correlated with our spiritual energies."

"That's true," she agreed. She had been feeling restless recently, but she had assumed it was simply a side effect of spending a few months in one place after traveling for so long. "I promise it hasn't affected my teaching, though."

His smile told her that he hadn't thought anything of the sort. "I am sure you are still a perfectly fit instructor, Katara, but it's a shame that Yugoda chose to stay in the north. She is much more knowledgeable of our body's chi patterns than I am."

"I'm sure it's not urgent. I can write to her." She guided the water back into the fountain, encountering the same strain she had when she pulled it out. "I should go get some rest. Thank you for your advice."

"Of course," he replied. "I can only hope Yugoda's is more helpful."

She bowed her head to him briefly before exiting the space, already beginning to draft a letter in her head as she headed home.

* * *

Zuko huffed out a frustrated sigh as he glared down at the trade agreement in front of him. It didn't make any sense, no matter how many times he read it.

As he stared at the paper, he realized that he was squinting at the letters. It had begun to get dark while he had been laboring over the agreement, and he had long since told the servants that there was no need to send someone in to light the lamps in his study when he could do it himself without even getting up.

Focusing briefly on the wicks of the lamps in order to ignite them, he felt an uncomfortable twinge in his abdomen. The flames stuttered as they came to life.

He frowned. That wasn't the first time that had happened, but it did seem to be getting worse. The twinge of pain always occurred somewhere in the vicinity of the scar he had received from Azula's lightning, and it always happened while he was bending. He knew he should mention it to someone — his uncle or Aang would both be good candidates, or even the palace physician — but he had been so busy that it kept slipping his mind until it happened again.

It was probably just stress, anyway. His uncle said that stress could cause all kinds of physical side effects.

Returning his focus to the baffling document in front of him, he once again put the pain out of his mind.

* * *

The landscape was foggy, shifting in weird ways whenever Katara tried to focus on anything.

Were those trees in the distance? Were they huge flowers?

She looked away, then back. Now she thought they might be ships.

"Katara." The voice was omnipresent and indescribable. "You are not at peace."

What did that mean? That she wasn't dead? She would have thought that was a good thing.

She looked around, trying to get any kind of bearing on her surroundings. All she saw was fog and greenish gray shapes. She couldn't even sense any water.

Then, suddenly, she could see something. Or rather, someone. The red of their clothes stood out starkly against the washed out grays.

Was that Zuko?

Frowning, Katara tried to move toward him, her mouth shaping one of the many questions running through her mind.

Nothing happened. She didn't move. She didn't speak.

"You are both adrift from yourselves," the voice continued. "You have tied yourselves together, but you failed to anchor your own souls. Now you must find balance before you lose yourselves entirely."

Katara felt panic begin to rise in her chest. She had no idea what any of that meant, but it sounded bad. They had tied themselves together? How? And what would it mean to "lose themselves entirely"?

Across the distance, a space that was somehow both insurmountable and insignificant, she met Zuko's gaze. The confusion and concern in his eyes matched her own.

"Fix this," the voice said.

* * *

In the Southern Water Tribe, Katara woke up with the sound of her heart pounding in her ears. Staring into the darkness of her small room, she tried to make sense of her dream.

It didn't actually feel like a dream at all. The memory of the shifting landscape and the ominous voice wasn't sliding away or fading, and the dread that had settled in her gut told her that something was deeply wrong.

She got up and slid her boots on, knowing she wasn't going back to sleep for a while. Better to be outside, where she knew the moon would help her find some kind of calm.

Except… it didn't.

The moon had been full only a few days ago, so it still hung large in the sky, but she couldn't feel it. Her innate sense of the water around her wasn't heightened. In fact, instead it seemed to have faded.

The dread grew heavier as she waved her arm toward the ice, becoming a cold rock in her stomach when the ice failed to move at all.

She tried a few more forms, both simple and advanced, but the ice remained stubbornly solid. She moved to a canal and tried to push the water around, hoping maybe her bending fatigue had just gotten worse.

The water remained still, the moon reflecting back at her as she glared down at it.

Frustrated, she huffed out a heavy sigh, and almost fell over in shock as she saw tiny flames come out with the steam of her breath.

Eyes wide, she experimentally punched her fist forward, the way she had seen Zuko do countless times. A burst of fire shot away from her, melting the block of ice that had refused to move for her before.

She stared down at the pile of slush in front of her in horror.

It had definitely not been a normal dream.

* * *

In the Fire Nation, Zuko awoke from the bizarre dream in a similar state of panic.

What did it mean to be "adrift from yourself"? Was this related to the weird twinges in his scar?

What did Katara have to do with any of it?

Getting out of bed, he tried to light the lamp that sat on the table near his bed, but nothing happened. The room stayed dark.

That was strange.

Not wanting to squint into the darkness, he moved over to the balcony. The gardens below were brightly illuminated by the nearly full moon above, and he felt a sense of calm wash over him as he stepped into the moonlight.

That was also strange. Moonlight was nice, sure, but he had been building himself toward a panic attack. He shouldn't suddenly feel so at ease.

So his firebending wasn't working and the moon made him feel calm. A very strange thought crept into his mind, and he turned toward the glass of water he had left next to his bed. Moving his hand in his best recreation of Katara's gestures, he pulled the water out of the glass and collected it into a liquidy orb above his hand.

This was going to be a serious problem.


	2. Letters

_Dear Katara,_

 _I don't know how to start this letter. Something very strange happened last night, but I'm afraid it's entirely unbelievable. I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't experienced it._

 _I think I stole your bending. Well, no. Stole is probably the wrong word, because that would imply that I have both yours and my own. Which I don't, because mine is gone. I'm a waterbender now. It doesn't make any sense and I'm very confused about it._

 _Anyway, before that happened, I had a dream that didn't feel like a dream. Or at least, it didn't feel like a normal dream. It was very foggy and there was a loud voice talking about being out of tune with our souls or something. And you were there. I don't know if it was really you, because I've never heard of that happening, but it felt like it was really you._

 _Something is telling me that it was really you and you might have experienced something similar last night. (Although by the time you get this, it won't be "last night" anymore.) I don't even know if that's possible, but I thought I should write to you and check. I'm worried I might be panicking. I'm pretty sure the Fire Lord isn't supposed to be a waterbender. Not that there's anything wrong with being a waterbender, of course, it's just not really in my job description. Obviously. I'm sorry. Like I said, I'm panicking a little. I would just get rid of these last couple of sentences but I don't really have time to redo this whole letter, and I can't just make the ink go away._

 _Actually, maybe I could. Since I'm a waterbender now._

 _Are you a firebender? If that was you in the dream, it seems like that would be possible. Or at least as possible as anything else._

 _I know you're very busy now that Master Pakku has asked you to train some of his students and I really don't want to take you away from that, but if you do happen to have a couple weeks of free time, I was hoping you might be able to come to the Fire Nation. I would come to you, but it would take a while to organize my absence from the palace. But if you're really busy, I'll try to make it work. I just really think we need to be in the same place to figure this out. Whatever this is._

 _I'm sorry this letter is so long and doesn't make a lot of sense. This situation is very strange._

 _Hope you've been well,_

 _Zuko_

* * *

 _Dear Zuko,_

 _Something unbelievably odd happened last night. I had a very weird dream that didn't actually feel like a dream at all, and when I woke up, my bending was gone. Well, not my bending, not entirely. My waterbending was gone. Instead, I can now firebend._

 _I know it sounds ridiculous, but I promise it's true. I think it had something to do with the dream that maybe wasn't actually a dream. You were in it, and someone was speaking to us about our souls. Since the voice was talking about both of our souls and now I'm bending your element, I'm assuming that you're also involved with whatever this is._

 _I'm trying to stay calm, but I'm honestly terrified. I've never heard of something like this, and the voice in the dream made it sound really bad. I'm worried this is some kind of trial. I'm also worried that there might be a time limit on solving it, and I don't know what happens if we go past it._

 _I don't know if you had the same dream, or if maybe we somehow shared it, but I have a feeling that we should be in the same place to figure out what's going on. This doesn't feel like something I should tell anyone about yet, so I've told Pakku that I'm going to the Northern Water Tribe to visit Yugoda, but I'm actually coming to the Fire Nation. I know you're very busy with all your duties as Fire Lord and I don't want to get in the way of that, but I feel like this is urgent. If you've experienced anything strange yourself, then I'm sure you'll agree with me._

 _See you soon,_

 _Katara_


	3. Turtleduck

**A/N: I really should have learned my lesson about saying things like "I'm going to try to get this out fairly quickly" by now. Life always ends up getting in the way somehow.**

* * *

"Lord Zuko!"

Zuko stopped, his hand on the door to his office, and turned to see a young woman rushing up the hall toward him. She usually worked in the kitchens, but he had gotten to know her during his first few weeks as Fire Lord when she had been assisting the palace physician. He had also occasionally seen her in the komodo rhino stables or sorting through scrolls in the library. If she had a job description, he had no idea what it was.

"Yes, Aili?" he asked, concerned by the urgent tone of her voice.

She came to a halt a few feet away from him, bowing her head briefly. "Lady Katara is in the palace gardens."

His eyes widened. "She's here already? Why didn't anyone tell me?"

Aili inlined her head again. "You were in a meeting. She was very insistent that we not disturb you while you were working."

"Of course she was." He sighed and turned away from his office door. "Thank you for the message, Aili."

After the end of the war, Katara had spent most of her free time in the Fire Nation Capital sitting by the pond in the palace gardens. She had loved creating little eddies with her bending and watching the ducklings ride them around the pond with explosions of tiny quacks.

Zuko was unsurprised to find her sitting at the edge of the water, watching the ducklings paddle around the still water with a wistful expression on her face. Wordlessly, he sat beside her and reached out toward the water, creating a swirl in the center of the largest huddle of ducklings.

As the ducklings squawked in surprise and began to excitedly follow the water's new movement, Katara looked over at him with a tiny smile.

"Thanks," she said quietly. She shifted her legs underneath her. "I guess we really did swap bending, then."

"Didn't you get my letter?"

She laughed. "You mean the mess of garbled language you sent me? I hope your official missives don't read like that."

He created another eddy for the ducklings without looking up at her, feeling his good ear get a bit warm.

"Yes," she said, "I got it. My dad had the hawk redirected for me, since I had already left when it arrived. It honestly just confirmed what I had already assumed. Nothing else made any sense."

"This doesn't make any sense either," he replied, letting the water still again. "I spoke to the palace librarian about it last night—"

Her eyes widened. "You did?"

"Hypothetically," he said hurriedly. "I didn't tell him it had actually happened. I trust him, but not that much. Anyway, he said there's nothing in any Fire Nation record he'd ever seen that indicated anything of the sort. He told me it was impossible, but…" He trailed off.

She held up her hand, conjuring a flame above her palm. Her expression was wry as she looked at him over it. "But," she agreed.

He looked at the flame for a minute, feeling a pang in his chest. It wasn't physical, not like the pains he had been getting before the swap. It felt a lot like being at a Fire Nation festival during his exile.

"We have to fix this," he said.

She closed her hand around the flame. "I know, but I don't even know where to start. Do you think your uncle would know anything?"

"More than us, at least," he said with a small shrug. "I'll send him a letter."

She nudged her shoulder against his, grinning. "Maybe I should send him a letter. You know, if we want it to make sense."

He groaned and covered his face with his hands. "I'm never writing to you again."

She laughed, probably knowing as well as he did that it was an entirely empty threat. Then she looked back at the water, sobering quickly.

"Maybe…" She sighed, dipping a finger into the pond. "Maybe you could write to Aang as well? He usually has some ideas about this kind of stuff."

Zuko watched her twirl her finger in a looping pattern through the water, wondering if he should ask about her hesitation. He knew that something had happened between her and Aang after the end of the war and that now they only spoke to each other in strange, stilted tones when obligated to be in the same room, but he didn't know the full story.

He wasn't sure that anyone but the two of them actually did.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I can write to Aang, too."

A silence fell over the garden, and Zuko couldn't decide if it was companionable or strained. It felt like the avoided topic was still hanging over them, but maybe that was just his own anxious thoughts. He had always been terrible at reading rooms.

"What if we tried sparring?"

Katara looked up at him, her brows furrowing. "With each other, you mean?"

"We can't really do it with anyone else without revealing our bending," he said, "so yeah, with each other. It'll probably go terribly, but…"

She sat back from the edge of the pond, head tilted thoughtfully. "I think that might actually be really interesting. Maybe learning how to use your bending will make me feel less weird about not having mine."

He understood what she meant. Losing access to his firebending left a certain feeling of powerlessness and vulnerability. He had been carrying his dao blades as discreetly as he could since the swap for exactly that reason, but Katara didn't have anything else. She had always relied on her bending.

Zuko gave the turtleducks one final current to ride around the pond, then got to his feet. He held out a hand for Katara, who took it with a smile and pulled herself up beside him.

"Is your training area private?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I'm sure someone would find me there in an emergency, but generally they don't disturb me while I'm practicing. The only place more private than that is my bedroom, and I don't think we want to do it in there."

As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted the phrasing. Sokka would have immediately thrown a lewd comment at him, he was sure, but luckily Katara was not her brother. She just raised her eyebrows.

"You know what I mean," he said awkwardly. "We don't want to spar there. Because of space, and—"

She nodded, her lips twitching at the corners. "Better to stick with the training area."

"Right," he agreed. He scratched the back of his neck. "Uh, anyway. I'm sure we'll be fine."

As he led the way out of the garden, he thanked Agni that his uncle had taught him how to rehearse speeches. The Fire Nation would probably be at war again in a day if he ever tried to ad lib a public address.

When they reached the training area, Katara immediately moved to stand near the barrels of water that Zuko had kept in the corner since the first time the two of them had decided to train together. As she turned back to face him, he raised an eyebrow at her.

"I think maybe I should take that side this time," he said.

"Oh, right," she replied, ducking her head as she shuffled away from the barrel. "That does make more sense."

He moved to take her place as she took up a defensive stance in his usual spot. After a moment's appraisal of their opponent, both benders began to move.

Zuko realized almost immediately that his instincts were entirely wrong for waterbending. Trying to force his limbs to move in fluid, continuous motions made him clumsy, and most of the water he tried to use against Katara ended up on the floor instead. Opposite him, Katara seemed to be having similar troubles. She moved rigidly, her awkwardly jerky movements causing her aim to fluctuate wildly.

After a few minutes of the worst sparring either of them had experienced in years, Zuko stopped and hurled the water back into its barrel.

"This isn't working," he said with a sigh. "It's like trying to write with my left hand."

Katara nodded, moving a chunk of hair over her shoulder. "I don't feel any less powerful, though. It's like I have the same level of bending ability, I just can't figure out how to control it."

Zuko gestured sharply upward with his hand, and the contents of each barrel shot out in a geyser-like fashion. The move definitely demonstrated a level of bending power that neither he nor Katara had possessed a couple years earlier.

"So we have the right amount of power," he said, dropping the water back into the barrels, "but the wrong technique."

She tilted her head thoughtfully. "I have an idea."

Before Zuko could ask what she meant, she had whirled her arms around her body and conjured a ring of fire. Grinning, she moved into a familiar waterbending stance and began to control the fire as if it was water, creating a bizarre version of her octopus form. Zuko watched her in shock, amazed at her ability to keep the fire in place. Firebenders were trained to summon bursts of flames as they needed them and to let them dissipate before moving on to another form. Zuko had always been told that a bender must be incredibly powerful to keep a fire burning with no fuel, especially long enough to do anything useful with it in combat.

But then, Katara had proven herself many times over to be an incredibly powerful waterbender. He supposed it made sense that the same would hold true of her firebending.

"This is amazing!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide with excitement. She moved her arms again, whipping her tendrils of flame into something reminiscent of a dance as she shifted out of the octopus form.

Zuko could only watch, entranced, as Katara completely upended everything he thought he had known about firebending. He wasn't sure he had ever seen anything quite so beautiful in his life.

She turned to face him as she completed another form, letting the fire vanish into the air. The radiant smile on her face made something in his chest jump.

"You should try it," she said. "With waterbending, I mean. See if you can use the water like you usually use fire."

He remembered his lessons on lightning redirection and the idea of taking inspiration from other forms of bending. His uncle would be elated to see what Katara had managed to do with the concept.

Frowning, Zuko settled into a more comfortable bending stance and pulled the water from the barrels again. It responded immediately, floating beside him in a massive ball. It took him slightly longer than Katara to find a rhythm that successfully adapted his firebending forms to the water's natural movement, but after a few minutes he managed to manipulate it to begin shooting shards of ice as though they were fireballs. He moved steadily through a basic firebending routine, using his hands and feet to control the water and concluding with an arc of water that followed his feet as he spun on one arm and flipped back upright.

Katara applauded as he returned the water to its barrels, adding a bit more gusto to her ovation than he thought was really necessary.

"That was incredible, Zuko!" she said. "I've never seen waterbending like that before."

"Your firebending was pretty unique, too." He shook his head slowly, still stunned by their discoveries. "I can't believe this worked."

She just grinned at him, conjuring an arc of fire between her hands. "Me neither, but I'm definitely not going to pass up the opportunity to kick your ass. What do you say we see just how far we can take this?"

"Bring it, Water Tribe," he retorted, and raised his arms to bring the water up in an array of hovering ice shards.

* * *

 **A/N: Unfortunately, since I didn't get this all written when I had planned to, I've now run up the end of my summer free time. I'm leaving for a trip to Europe in a couple of days and then I'm moving and starting a new job, so it may be a little while before I can actually finish up this fic. But I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'll try to be back as soon as I can with another.**


End file.
